The Nature of Musicality
Marilyn Pflederer · Music Educators Journal · 1963
musicality must ultimately be defined, if definition is possible, in terms of the relationship of the human subject to the music. We have then not one, but two variables which must be considered, the musical object and the human organism. Seashore sought the answer to the question of musicality by measuring the individual's response to the elements of music-pitch, intensity, timbre or tone color, and rhythm. But music is more than the sum of its individual elements, and such devices succeed only in determining one's response to the acoustical properties of sound and rhythm. An analogy might be drawn to one who is adept in word recognition. The ability to identify specific words does not necessarily imply that the person is also responsive to the flow of metaphor and imagery in language or that he can manipulate words in a significant verbal communication. Mursell with his consistent field theory orientation sees musicality as awareness of tonal-rhythmic configurations or total patterns and an emotional response, thereto.1 He believes that music is essentially dependent upon the transforming and organizing of the mind upon the tonal and rhythmic stimuli which reach the ear. In order for the mind to organize and transform aural stimuli, it would logically follow that it must be presented with sound patterns rather than with the isolated elements of sound.